


How It Was Meant to Be

by lin_the_bae_fong



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fix-It, Time Travel, Timelines, Yasha becomes the big bad, level 20 mighty nein, mild gorey violence, the character death is in another timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 18:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19431442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lin_the_bae_fong/pseuds/lin_the_bae_fong
Summary: It's been years since the Mighty Nein have lost Yasha to the Angel of Irons, and she is now the commander of the Abyssal troops that are deadset on ending Exandria as we know it. The Orphanmaker has taken everything from him, but Caleb has one last Hail Mary to stop all of this from ever happening in the first place. He just hopes his mother and father can forgive him.





	How It Was Meant to Be

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry in advance.

Caduceus and Fjord are gone, hopefully to the embrace of their Wildmother. Jester might be too, by the way Beauregard is clutching her unconscious body, screaming in heartbreak as the tieflings infernal blood soaks into her white robes. Caleb couldn’t be more thankful he convinced Veth to go home to her husband and son, where she was safe. 

Yasha- no, The Orphanmaker. The Orphanmaker looms over Beauregard and Jester. Caleb watches in terror as the fallen angel raises a jagged great-sword above her head. The same blade that had cut down the rest of his friends now aimed for Beauregard, his _ sister _ . A cruel grin spreads across the Aasimar’s pale face. Her wings are no longer incorporeal and the leathery, torn hide of them drip darkness like blood and smoke. The same blackness fills the entirety of her eyes. 

Caleb reaches into his coat and fumbles for the time piece he keeps there. He watches in horror as Beau looks up at the woman they once called friend, and simply offers her neck out to her,  _ gives up.  _ The sinister smile of The Orphanmaker grows wider, and Caleb finds the component he was looking for and twists the crown of the pocket-watch quickly in reverse, incanting hurriedly under his breath. He focuses intently on the object in front of him, pushing the squelching sound of The Orphanmaker’s blade cleaving through his best friend’s flesh out of his mind. 

His incantations do not go unnoticed by The Orphanmaker, much to the Dunamancer’s chagrin. He speaks faster, willing the tendrils of time to wrap around him, watches intensely as the arms of the clock move quickly in reverse even though he’s stopped twisting it’s crown. He  _ feels _ more than hears the barbarians bellow of rage, how it twists his heart and his voice wavers as tears drip from his chin. Her footsteps are almost on him now, maybe ten feet away, and he prays that he’ll have enough time. He prays to her god, to the Stormlord.  _ Let me fix this, please. _

He hears the wind split as the jagged great-sword of The Orphanmaker, still dripping with the blood of his family, races down towards his head as he speaks the last words of his incantation. 

Blackness. Silence. Nothingness. This spell can only be used once, he knows. Was he successful? Or had the Raven Queen’s Champion come to claim him? 

Just as he starts to accept the possibility that he had failed, that he was too late, there is a flash of light and he feelst himself stumble on cobblestone steps. He watches as Beauregard, years younger than the Beauregard left lying lifeless in his own timeline, beats her fists into the creature that started all of this. Obann.

Caleb remembers this moment all too well. The moment Obann died. The moment Yasha may as well have died. 

Caleb knows that in a moment Fjord will cut down the fiend as he tries to escape, and Yasha will be broken.

Caleb knows he must stop it. 

He runs up the steps toward the fiend bastard, the piece of shit that has been the downfall of his friends, his family,  _ himself. _ He watches as the Summer’s Dance falchion digs deep into devilish red skin, ignores the confused shouts brought on by the Dunamancer’s sudden appearance. Caleb tackles the fiend, his hand covering the creatures mouth, and casts planeshift to tear open a gate to the Abyss. 

He hears the worried shouts of the Mighty Nein of a time past cease as the portal seals shut behind him. The tortured screams of the Abyss blur into the background as he and Obann’s bodies skid across the ground and come to a halt in a plume of dust. He hears a gurgled breath from below him. 

“Ah,  _ hervorragend,  _ you are still alive.” Caleb says as he rolls off the fiend. The injuries prior to his time jump throb painfully. 

“Y-you. You have ruined  _ everything. _ ” Obann gasps for breath that won’t come as he speaks.

“I saw what became of her, you know. She was our friend. She killed my family because of you. I’ve lost my family twice now. How strange, I wonder, that I chose to save this one instead of my mother and father.” Caleb presses his hand against his chest and frowns at the slick red that comes from it. There is a wet cough from beside him, and Caleb sighs and pulls the dagger from his belt. 

“Killing me...won’t save her…” Obann argues. Caleb breathes heavily as he sits up and kneels over the winged devil. 

“Maybe. But it gives the people I love a fighting chance.” He places the tip of the dagger to the fiends chest. 

“You will die here with me.” The fiend spits with boiling blood. Caleb closes his eyes and takes one more deep, stuttering breath. 

“I know.” 

He plunges the blade into Obann’s heart. The wizard doesn’t flinch when the fiends screech of pain echoes in his head and around him. 

Then silence.

In the years it has taken Caleb to master Dunamancy, he had become attuned to following the threads of time, the offshoots of what could’ve been and what will be. He feels his connection to his time’s thread burn away as death rattles the fiend’s chest. 

Caleb hum’s curiously at where his hands are wrapped around the hilt of the dagger. He sighs and sits back on his heels as the tips of his fingers begin to turn to ash, and blow in the hot wind of the Abyss. He closes his eyes and prays. He prays to the Stormlord, to the Wildmother, the Traveler and Ioun, and to the Raven Queen, the Master of Fates herself.

_ Please, _

__ he begs as more of his body slowly falls away, 

_ please watch over them.  _

Caleb closes his eyes as he feels his time coming to an end. He hears the beating of wings in the distance.

_ Please keep my family safe. _

Darkness. Silence. Nothingness. 

  
  
  
  


No, not nothingness. Someone is holding his hand. It’s only there for a moment, and it’s cold, before suddenly it’s gone and he’s basked in warmth.

“-leb, get up man. Open your eyes.” 

He does as told, blinking to adjust to the radiant light. White robes.

_ Beauregard? _

“There you are, man. We’ve been waitin’ for you. Took you fucking long enough.” Beau chuckles as she helps him sit up. He looks around, voice caught in his throat as he looks around at each of his friends kneeling around him in a field of reeds. 

Caduceus Clay, Master Cleric of the Wildmother.

Fjord, Holy Warlock of the Wildmother.

Jester Lavorre, Cleric-Barbarian of the Traveler. 

Beauregard Lionett, Head Expositor of the Cobalt Soul, the woman with fists that can kill a man in 10 seconds flat.  _ Meine Schwester.  _

Caleb surges forward to wrap his arms around the monk tightly, tears flowing freely into her robed shoulder. He chuckles softly.

“I did it. They have a chance.” Beau pulls away from him slightly at the information, a small smile on her lips. 

“That’s all we can ask for. Welcome home, Caleb.”


End file.
